Wake up
by The Mome Raths Outgrabe
Summary: Scott wakes up from a dream, and things get stranger after that.


**Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Wolf.**

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Scott jolted up from the bed and looked around his room. It was just a dream. Thank god it was just a dream...only he realized with a frown he couldn't actually remember what the dream was.

"Scott, you have to wake up," he jumped as he hadn't seen Stiles but there he was sitting there next to his bed. How could he have missed him? Stiles was looking at him sadly, and dread starting seeping in.

"What happened?" Scott demanded as he sat up in bed and moved to the side preparing to lift himself off it.

"Scott, you have to wake up," Stiles repeated in the same tone and inflection, which caused Scott to pause.

"But I am awake," he replied confused staying in the same position. The sunlight was peeking through his closed blinds but he could tell it was probably the afternoon, thankfully, it was Saturday. But none of that mattered because Stiles was scaring him a little with the way he was staring at him and telling him to wake up, when he was already awake.

"No, you're not," Stiles negated with a shake of his head which made him even more worried.

"Stiles are you having trouble telling what's real again?" Scott asked scared for his friend. The Nogitsune had been a horrible time for him, but he knew that it had been even worse for Stiles. The not sleeping, the not knowing what was real and what wasn't. Thinking he had his mother's disease and then hurting all those people. Stiles shook his head and said in a very calm voice.

"I know what's real. It's you that has the problem distinguishing realities." Scott frowned, he had no idea what Stiles meant by that but it didn't make him any less worried about his friend.

"Stiles, I have no idea what you're talking about," Scott said honestly. Stiles wasn't making any sense. Stiles nodded like he had expected that answer.

"You've been in it so long that you can't see it for what it really is," Scott was starting to get frustrated the more Stiles talked around whatever he was saying without ever actually saying anything.

"Stiles just tell me what you're talking about," Scott snapped. Stiles nodded a few times before he said.

"I suppose it's time, though I don't expect you to accept it easily."

"Accept wha-"

"I'm not real," Stiles interrupted. Scott just stared at his friend in surprise and found that his mouth was open, he hurriedly closed it.

"Of course you're real," Was this some sort of joke? If it was it wasn't funny and with The Beast out there doing god knew what this kind of distraction was potentially dangerous.

"Scott, none of this is real," Scott frowned at his friend wondering if this was some sort of game. Was Stiles possessed again or was this a hallucination? His thought of this being a joke quickly flitted away, even Stiles wouldn't joke about something like this. He looked down at his hands and counting his fingers like he had had Stiles do when he wasn't sure what was real. Five fingers on each hand, so it wasn't a dream, but that didn't mean that this wasn't a hallucination or a trick.

"Scott, when did we become friends?" Scott didn't see what that had to do with anything and honestly he was still trying to figure out if this was a trick or a hallucination, but he distractedly answered.

"When I was 9,"

"Which was when…"Stiles said making it seem like he waiting for him to complete the thought but Scott still had no idea what Stiles was talking about and honestly wasn't really paying to him.. Stiles sighed "It's when your parents started fighting." Scott's attention was drawn back to the other teen but still didn't see how any of this was related. "You needed someone but your parents were too busy fighting each other," Scott's mind went back to what Stiles was talking about. Yeah it had been a hard time and he had met Stiles during that time, but what Stiles was saying was just ridiculous.

"I was there, I was always there when you needed me, wasn't I?" He had been, even in the middle of the night. Anytime Scott would call him Stiles would come and hang out with him, but that's just what best friends did. Scott had done the same when Stiles' mom had died.

"Yeah, because we're best friends," Scott said wondering why he felt so defensive when he didn't believe a single word coming out of Stiles' mouth, which was probably a fake Stiles anyways.

"I was the start," Stiles said.

"Of what?" Scott asked despite himself.

"I was an imaginary friend, something to help you get through their fighting and when you're Dad left. For a while I was enough, until I wasn't anymore. You made yourself the hero of your own little world," he said with a hint of sadness like he felt sorry for him.

"This is a lie," Scott said getting off the bed and moving to the hallway to get away from Stiles who was spewing the lies, however, the fake Stiles followed him into the hall.

"Besides, I'm not much of a hero I couldn't save Alison or Aiden!" he shouted at the fake Stiles.

"Aiden who you didn't like and Alison who had chosen someone else. What use were they to you anymore? Their deaths meant that you could clear a lot of unnecessary players from the board and make way for the next challenge because there always had to be a new challenge or you stop being the hero."

"If I did make it up and I didn't, why would I put so much death and destruction and monsters in my world? Why didn't I just make it a happy perfect place?!" he asked angrily.

"If it was perfect your mind would have had a hard time accepting it, because everyone, especially a little kid who seen his parents fight, knows that the world isn't perfect. You would have never believed a perfect world. The death and destruction keeps you in it, keeps you busy and not focused on the world itself, but all the players, on the villains which you get to destroy and then make new bigger ones to destroy. The monsters you destroy, the people you protect, all without their knowledge, the friends you've gathered along the way all to make you feel important. Why else would you be a true alpha when no one else in your world is? That's pretty self-important." the sadness and concern faded from his voice with every word and now he just sounded emotionless and cold.

"I never asked for any of this!" Scott shouted. He had never wanted any of this and Stiles' insinuation that he had done this to himself was making him angry, though he was pretty sure it wasn't really Stiles. Regardless, whoever it was knew a lot about him, and it was unnerving.

"Really?" Stiles asked, "you never wanted to be the star player? Get the girl who happened to fit into your world really neatly? To be the hero? To be the one true alpha?" Stiles said incredulously. Fake, he was fake. Scott reminded himself he didn't believe any of this crap. He didn't know what was really going on but he knew whatever this it wasn't real, Stiles wasn't really here.

"What are you?" Scott demanded and pressed the fake Stiles up against the wall by his neck, his claws digging into not-Stiles' skin. "Why are you trying to do this?" Scott demanded. Was this another plan of Theo's to tear them apart? He wouldn't put it past him. Not-Stiles didn't seem very bothered by the claws digging into his neck.

"I'm not real. You don't really have claws, you never have," Scott looked at his hands-wait claws they were claws. They had been claws just moments ago. No, no, no, how was this happening? He tried to make his claws come out again but they wouldn't.

"Look at your hands again, I mean really look at them," despite the voice inside of him that was screaming not to listen to Stiles he did. "You ever think that maybe because you believe it's real so much it might make it real to you, count them again," Scott dropped Stiles who picked himself up from the floor like it was nothing. Scott was focused on his fingers. He had six fingers on his left hand. No, no this wasn't real, this hallway wasn't real that he had walked down every day for years.

Wait, just because this world wasn't real, didn't mean that the world that he knew wasn't real. This whole thing could be a hallucination to make him think that his life wasn't real. But for what purpose? To demoralize him? To make him think he was crazy like Stiles with the Nogitsune? There had to be some reason for this.

"This isn't real," he said.

"Finally, you understand," Stiles answered with a hint of a smile but Scott shook his head.

"This isn't real but my life, my world that's real, this is all some sort of trick," Stiles sighed like he couldn't believe that Scott was such an idiot.

"I'm trying to ease you out of this, but you're not making it easy. The doctors are doing Electric shock therapy and Deep brain Stimulation and it's working. I'm the part of your brain that knows the truth, I'm trying to help you get out of here and back to the real world without shattering your mind." Scott couldn't take the words anymore and sat down on the opposite side of the hallway and put his hands over his ears and closed his eyes

"This is a lie. This is a trick. Someone wants to hurt me. Someone wants to make me doubt who I am, but it's all a lie. It's a lie. It's a lie," he told himself repeatedly as he blocked out whatever lies the not-Stiles was trying to feed him. He felt someone close to him and despite himself opened them. He also pulled his hands slightly away from his ears without realizing it. Stiles was crouched in front of him staring at him dead in the eyes, he wasn't blinking, he wasn't blinking at all.

"There's only one way to know for sure," he said. He reminded Scott so much of the Nogitsune in that moment, even though he wasn't hurting him or even smirking at him, his cold detached demeanor was just nothing like Stiles.

"What's that?" Scott asked, worried that whatever it was would be extreme. That he would ask him to hurt people, which he would never do.

"Don't worry, if I ask you to kill one person then you have to kill the rest and you haven't made up a few people you made up a whole town full of them. There's only one way to snap back to reality."

"What's that?" Scott asked despite not wanting to know, he still wasn't blinking. It wasn't normal, it was unnatural, then again he knew it was not Stiles.

"You know some people think that if you die in a dream you die in real life, but other think that death, death is the way to wake up from a bad dream," Scott processed that for a moment.

"You want me to kill myself?" Stiles shook his head.

"You can't kill yourself. You already know it's not real, so, whatever happens, isn't real. You would just be waking up from a dream. You want to wake up don't you?" He wanted to know what was real- no he knew what was real. His life was real and this, this was a dream, or something... it wasn't real. So would killing himself in this dream bring him back to reality? Still, the thought of killing himself made him pause. He hadn't tried to do that since that hotel and wolfsbane incident that he usually pretended never happened. He had been out of his mind then, he wasn't now.

"This isn't real Scott, none of this is," Stiles said putting his hand on his shoulder. Scott backed away from it, he didn't like Not-Stiles, not at all. "You need to wake up, you need to live life, real life." Scott looked around, it seemed so real though but it couldn't be could it? Stiles said extra fingers were signs of dreaming and he still had an extra finger, so he was dreaming right? It had to be a dream right? Only it felt real. Scott squeezed his hand hard and it hurt, shouldn't it not hurt? Except Stiles had sleepwalked and dreamt about his leg being hurt and had sure sounded like the pain his friend had felt was real. So the pain didn't necessary mean anything, did it?

He was so confused, and he didn't know what to do. He wished that Stiles was there. The real Stiles not this unemotional Not-Stiles in front of him that wanted him to kill himself and was telling him that Stiles had never been real to begin with. It was real wasn't it? It had to be real. Stiles had to be real. Stiles was his best friend and everything that happened good or bad he had worked so hard for, it had to be real. He looked down at his left hand again. But this wasn't….this wasn't real. A dream, it had to be a dream, a strange dream. When he woke up from it then everything would be back to normal, well as normal as things could be in Beacon Hills with The Beast roaming around terrorizing the place. He had to wake up. He replayed Not-Stiles' words. If it wasn't real then maybe death was the way out? Shouldn't he be to wake himself up without doing something so drastic? He had already tried pain, shouldn't he be able to wake himself up another way? Only he couldn't think of a way.

"Scott you need to wake up!" Not-Stiles shouted and grabbed his shoulder harshly hard enough that he jolted from the pain. "Wake up!" he shouted. It was a dream. It was a dream. So whatever he did would just be waking himself from the dream right? But what if Not-Stiles was right...what if he had made this all up and it all went away? Everything he was, was related to who he was now. It was a lie. It was a lie. It had to be a lie. He had to wake up and he could only think of one way to do that.

He grabbed a knife from off the floor, not even wondering where it had come from as it hadn't been there a moment ago and he had never seen anything like it before. He stared at the sharp edge intently. He would wake up. Wake up to the real world, with Stiles's and the others because that was what the real world was. Not-Stiles was wrong because his friends were real, his pack were real and whatever this was it was going to end. He was going to wake up. Scott was going to wake up to the real world. He took a deep breath in, fake or no this wasn't probably going to be a walk in the park, but he would be awake and he wouldn't have to deal with Not-Stiles anymore. He grunted as he plunged the knife into his heart.

It hurt. It hurt so much. He felt more pain than he ever though he could feel in a dream. It hurt so damn much. He felt himself being lowered to the floor distantly his vision started graying on the edges but he sought out Stiles. Real or not, if he was going to fake die then he wanted his best friend regardless of whether or not this version of him was really real.

"Stiles," he gasped. Stiles wasn't looking at him though he was looking down the hall. His vision faded quickly but he could still hear and he heard footsteps dashing their way up the stairs. They were in a hurry, but Scott wasn't worried about it. He wasn't worried anymore, because the pain had stopped and everything felt like it was going to be okay. He was waking up and soon everything would be okay. .

"Scott! no!" he heard a voice yell, distantly he noted that it was Stiles's voice and there was something about it that he didn't like, but mostly he was focused on the warm feeling inside of him that was growing and a bright light that was growing. He felt warm, like nothing could hurt him. Surrounded by this warmth he heard a sweet voice say

"Wake up Scott, "


End file.
